


Look on My Works, Ye Mighty, and Despair!

by SylvanWitch



Series: In the Ruins [6]
Category: Harry Potter - Fandom
Genre: AU post-OotP, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-27
Updated: 2012-12-27
Packaged: 2017-11-22 14:30:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,905
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/610836
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SylvanWitch/pseuds/SylvanWitch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Never sacrifice your life's blood to a Goddess on the first date, and other useful lessons on fighting the "good" fight.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Look on My Works, Ye Mighty, and Despair!

**Author's Note:**

> This series was my first fanfiction endeavor, posted in 2004 at RestrictedSection.org. The title of this chapter is from Shelley's "Ozymandias."

Sirius Black was wet, soaked to the skin with stinking, fetid black water. It dripped from his hair into his eyes, into his ears. He could feel the filthy rivulets making greasy paths down his back and he shuddered. He wanted nothing more than to shake himself thoroughly, as he would in dog form, but he had far greater things to worry about than his current discomfort, such as the extremely angry goddess of war whose explosive rise from Vivienne's Pool had drenched him to begin with. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Tonks start to edge away from the pool, back towards the tunnel down which they had come, but his attention shifted suddenly and totally to the figure before him when she let out a ghastly shriek and began to weave her hands in patterns on the air.

In the shriek he could hear the wailing of the suffering dead, the death cries of the innocent, the hopeless sobbing of the falsely condemned, the cackling of they who had died in madness, the desperate shrieks of the too young, the gasping breaths of the old on their stale beds, the lonely moaning of suicides...it was a chorus of doom, and he found tears springing to his eyes unbidden. Black felt his knees weaken, found himself volitionless as he began to sink to the floor. Tonks caught him by the elbow and screamed, "No!" directly into his ear, which gave him a moment's respite from the terrible banshee wails. He went for his wand but found himself hampered by the heavy burlap sack he carried, in which was the stunned eagle owl they had brought for sacrifice. Tonks yelled, "Give her the owl! Give her the owl, Black!" over the rising keening of damned souls.

Abandoning the attempt at his wand, he focused all of his energy on using his shaking hands to open the sack. Reaching in gingerly, he found the bird's bound talons and lifted it out upside down. Still insensible, the owl did not struggle. Into his field of vision came a bone-handled ceremonial knife, and he took it with his right hand. Crying out the final words of the invocation, "Goddess grant our audience this day,/Give us your help to guide our way," he slit the bird's throat in one quick, skilled motion. The blood jetted from the bird's pumping throat, spraying in a high arc into the goddess, whose amorphous and watery form seemed to fill the whole space between pool and cavern ceiling. When the blood hit her, the wail lessened and then died into the low moan of cave winds. The stench of decay rolled over them in nauseating waves, and Tonks wretched desperately.

A voice eerily devoid of humanity said, "I accept your gift. Speak. My patience is thin."

Tonks, holding a hand to her face to deflect the odor, stuttered, "Gr---great Goddess of War, Queen of Ghosts, hail!"

The form shifted impatiently, and Tonks decided that it might be best to skip the usual preliminaries. This goddess did not seem interested in protocol.

"We have heard it spoken in legends that you possess weapons of great power. We ask of you such a weapon to use in the battle that is to come."

"And what will you offer me in return for this weapon?" 

Tonks hesitated, and the wailing rose in volume. Black interceded hastily, "Goddess, we are your humble servants. What would you have of us in exchange for this most generous of gifts?"

"I require a sacrifice more impressive than this." She gestured dismissively at the dead owl, whose blood now collected on the craggy floor and ran in gory streams into the pool supporting the goddess' form.

"A goat?" Tonks offered. The wails rose.

"A bull," said Sirius firmly, as though he were haggling over the price of a used broom. 

The keening thrust terrible daggers into his heart; the stench thickened in his throat and slithered down into his stomach, and he doubled over at the waist, hastening to fasten one hand over his mouth and nose to keep from vomiting into her pool.

Tonks braved, "We cannot give you a human," and the wailing crescendoed, crashing over them in wave after wave of annihilating despair. Tonks was sobbing now openly, and Black had moved away from the pool to be violently sick. Bile burned its way up from his now-empty stomach and spewed out on the rocks at his feet. He heaved breathlessly, terrified that he would pass out.

"You are weak! You dare speak to me of what you cannot do!" Voice a throttling chord around their throats.

"Wait!" Black gasped, lips wet with blood-flecked bile, one hand reaching upward in supplication toward the looming goddess. But Morrigu knew no mercy, not for the long, long centuries of her reign in the Celtic pantheon and certainly not since she had been deposed to a dank pool in a dark cave on the coast of Scotland. Black felt his body begin to shake, convulsions ripping through him, tearing his straining breath from his throat, a terrible pressure building in his chest as the wailing cries echoed off the cavern around him, so loud now that it seemed to come from within his skull. He gripped his hands over his ears, unmanned and sobbing, hearing now Harry's voice mingled with the legions of doomed souls whose cries boomed around them like shouts down Hades' deepest well. He heard hopeless screams much closer, and some part of his mind still spared from the primitive terror wracking his body knew that they came from Tonks. Spots wavered in his near vision and he began to blink furiously, trying to see, trying not to hear, pulling at the air in a frantic effort to breathe.

"ENOUGH!" A deep voice boomed off the cavern walls, colliding with the banshee wails but not diminishing them. "I SAID—ENOUGH!" A barely perceptible fall in the volume of the shrieks as the goddess shifted her attention to stare down at the puny human who dared raise his voice in defiance.

Severus Snape drew himself up to his full height, somehow managing to appear as though staring down his nose at the huge figure of the goddess above him. In his right hand was his wand and his left sleeve was rolled up, baring the Dark Mark, which glowed with a dull, subcutaneous green light. Morrigu appeared to examine the Mark for a moment and then, as suddenly as it had begun, the wailing ceased, and Black collapsed face down against the ground, rolling onto his back to drag great gusts of breath into his oxygen-starved body. Nearby, Tonks huddled against the ground in a half-crouch, head over her knees, shaking.

"You are one of my children," Morrigu observed impassively.

Snape bowed his head, half acknowledgment, half worship. "I come as your priest to worship and give thanks to Morrigu, Goddess of War, Queen of Ghosts, Seductress of Cuchulain. I bring a humble offering to She Who Rides with Death." At this, he turned over his left forearm, drew his wand in a vertical motion along the smooth, pale skin, muttering all the while, and sliced a precise and gaping wound. Blood welled and began to run from his arm in a stream of gore. Morrigu bent over him then, and from his position on the ground nearby, it seemed to Black that she engulfed Snape in a curtain of dark water. Within the blurry shield of her enveloping form, Snape seemed to writhe in agony, but no sound came from the poolside where the two were joined in a horribly intimate embrace. 

"Severus," Black whispered hoarsely, pushing himself up onto all fours. He began to crawl with herculean effort toward Snape, who was still standing, though he seemed to be quivering in the water-distorted light.

Just as Black reached Snape's side, stretching one shaking hand out to touch the black waterfall around him, the water broke with a crash, and Morrigu was gone. Snape staggered, began to pitch forward into the pool, and Tonks was suddenly there, holding him upright and pulling him back from the edge, lowering him gently to the ground. 

"Severus," Black whispered again, "Severus, we need to heal this. You're losing too much blood."

Even in the weak light of the electric torches they had brought, Sirius could see the pallor of Snape's skin, which was stretched across the bones his face like parchment. The blood still welled and ran, pumping rhythmically, and Black realized that Snape had hit a major vein. A shaking wand came into view, wielded by Tonks, who gave a weak half-smile. "I think I can do it," she said. She moved her wand along the wound, muttering a healing spell, but nothing happened. Snape was barely conscious, his breath coming in shallow pants, eyelids fluttering. "End. . .spell," he managed on a weak exhale, and Tonks shook her head in self-disgust. "Finite Incantatum," she intoned firmly, and the blood slowed, though it did not stop. Once again, she traced the wound with her wand, chanting the spell to heal an incision, and her wand left in its wake only smooth, unmarred skin. Severus slumped into unconsciousness.

"Bloody git!" Sirius shouted hoarsely, regaining his voice. "What did you think you were doing?" Then he, too, passed out.

In the dark cave, Tonks rose, gave a long sigh, retrieved Sirius' wand in her left hand and pointed it at the animagus, trained her own wand in her right hand on Snape, and said "Mobilicorpi." As she glanced around her to see that she had left nothing important behind, she was startled to discover a pouch of worn green leather sitting, miraculously dry, in the middle of a puddle of black water and blood. Carefully lowering Sirius' unconscious form for a moment, she transferred his wand to her robe pocket long enough to pick up the pouch and awkwardly, one-handed, drape its cord about her neck. Once she had secured the prize, she resumed the spell on Black's body and moved slowly toward the cave entrance and the cliffs beyond. It was going to be a long journey back to the house.

*****

For the second time in three days, Severus Snape had the disconcerting idea that he was in Hades, only this time, the demon was murmuring Dark spells over his skin, making his flesh crawl, goosebumps ridging his exposed arms. He felt nauseated, weightless and at the same time pulled downward toward a deep abyss below, over which he hung suspended, like a spider on a burning thread. He wanted to surrender to the darkness, but something tugged at him, dragging him upward toward consciousness, and he resisted. Then the demon's voice became clear, "Enervate!" and he snapped awake, suddenly wholly aware of his surroundings.

Dumbledore stood frowning down at him, "You took a great deal of coaxing, Severus. How do you feel?"

Snape took a moment to catalog his bones, a shudder running through him. He was cold, but he did not say so. "I am fine," he said, coolly, pulling himself upward, his arms shaking with the effort. A wave of nausea rolled over him, and he paused to still the suddenly spinning room, taking shallow breaths. His gorge rose in his throat and he swallowed heavily. A hand on his shoulder steadied him. He turned to find Sirius Black next to him on the bed, propped up against the headboard, blankets a tangle around his legs. 

"You lost a lot of blood, you git. Lay still awhile."

"I. Am. Fine," Snape repeated in a stilted voice from which he could not drive the shaking. He really did feel horrid.

"Sirius is right, Severus. While we cannot spare you indefinitely, it is important that you do not strain yourself unnecessarily. Rest awhile. Molly is preparing stew for you, and you will eat all of it. I made sure that she went heavy on the meat." At this, something of the old Albus Dumbledore twinkled in the aged wizard's eyes, and Snape had the briefest flash of a Halloween table laden to overflowing with cakes of all kinds. He closed his eyes against the vision.

"What you did was very foolish, Severus," Dumbledore continued, and Snape's eyes opened abruptly, flashing ire. "What guarantee did you have that Morrigu would not take all of your blood?"

"None." His face was stone, impassive and unreadable.

Sirius stirred impatiently beside him. "Did it ever occur to you that we might need you alive for the rest of the plan to work?"

"What occurred to me was that while my loss might be tragic," a sardonic emphasis on the last word, "the loss of two of our people, one of them a trained Auror, would be far more detrimental to the cause. Besides, I suspected that She would be attracted to the Dark Mark, that She would recognize a certain—kinship. I took a calculated risk that She would not kill me," he shrugged, as though it were neither here nor there to him that his risk had nearly proven fatal.

Dumbledore seemed satisfied, and he busied himself for a moment, with wand and robes. Turning half toward the door, he tossed casually over his shoulder, "Oh, Severus, it might interest you to know that we have some new guests. I'll expect you in the kitchen in an hour. Sirius, you'll help him down?" Without waiting for an answer to what was, evidently, a rhetorical question, Dumbledore swept breezily from the room. A hummed tune drifted between the jamb and the door as it fell closed.

Irritated beyond measure at Dumbledore's transparent attempt to entice his interest, Snape gritted out, "Who is here?"

"Madame Rosmerta and Mundungus Fletcher arrived about an hour ago."

At the mention of time, Snape started, and Black said, "You've been unconscious for the better part of two hours. When Tonks got us back to the house it was three o'clock. I came to about half an hour later. It's almost five now."

Snape made an impatient gesture for Black to continue. "Seems that there is a secret tunnel running from the Three Broomsticks to the edge of the Forbidden Forest. Rosmerta claims it was left over from the Council of Eretria's shortlived Prohibition of Strong Spirits in 1834. She and Mundungus were—occupied—in the storeroom when the attack occurred, and they slipped out undetected. They'd been skirting about the edges of the village, reconnoitering and attempting to organize a resistance, when they sensed the beacon." 

"The second beacon has brought no one to us, thus far. Dumbledore is holding out hope that there may still be a few refugees unaccounted for, but the rest of us are skeptical."

Snape's expression betrayed momentary surprise, "Is it possible that the ever-hopeful Sirius Black has finally been introduced to reality?"

Black shrugged. "In little more than eighteen hours, it won't matter who has answered our call. I think it best that we plan for the numbers we have at our disposal, rather than counting on reinforcements that are unlikely ever to arrive."

Snape's silence was a weighted thing, and Black turned to examine his lover's profile. "What are you thinking?" the animagus asked softly. Snape quirked an eyebrow in his usual sardonic sneer, "That I am heartily tired of receiving visitors in this position," as the door opened and Molly Weasley entered, carrying a wooden tray heavily laden with large, steaming bowls of stew and two tankards of an equally steamy liquid. "Rabbit stew and warmed butterbeer." At Snape's inquiring eyebrow, she added, "Rosmerta keeps a secret store at the Forest end of the tunnel, 'for revels,' she said." Snape snorted his faith in that excuse but said only, "Thank you," as Molly set the tray beside the bed. "Now, you're to eat all of that," she instructed sternly in her mother-knows-best voice. Black said, "Yes, mum," a smile in his voice, which faded quickly at her instinctual flinch. "Sorry," he muttered. "No, dear. That's alright. I'm still a mum, after all, even if..." She let it go and hurried from the room. "Well done," Snape said, words laced with sarcasm. "And I'm the tactless one!" 

"Shut up," Black said, voice suddenly tired. They ate in silence, side by side in the large bed. When they'd finished, Black turned to Snape.

"I haven't properly thanked you for saving my life today."

Snape snorted. "I believe that I must repeat your admonishment from the last time by reminding you that I am too weak from blood loss for seduction."

"You git," but it was gently said. "I only meant that I appreciate what you did for me, for us. It was an incredibly brave, though foolish, thing that you did, putting yourself in Her way like that. In fact, it was positively Gryffindor-like."

"Is it your habit to insult the person you are trying to thank?" Snape's back was rigid, his gaze forward, adamantine. The conversation was clearly making him uncomfortable.

Sirius pressed his advantage, "I only meant that I think you did it for more than the cause, say what you will to Albus. I think you did it because you don't want to lose me."

Snape's gaze swiveled on his stiff neck and he impaled Black with a flinty gaze. "Let us be clear," the Potions Master began, his voice deadly and low. "I saved your life and the life of that irritatingly perky Auror because you are both necessary to the cause. If we are to defeat Voldemort, an unlikely proposition at best, we need the greatest strength in numbers that we can muster. Your individual life is of no particular consequence to me, and I would thank you to remem—"

Black stoppered the vitriol with a firm kiss, a kiss that demanded that Snape open his mouth or risk bruising his lips against his teeth. As Snape yielded, Black's tongue snaked into the narrow opening, running smoothly along Snape's tongue and teasing the roof of his mouth. Black moved so that he was in a better position to deepen the kiss, straddling Snape's thighs and settling back against Snape's bent knees. One of Snape's hands, seemingly a separate entity from his still-protesting brain, rose up to card through Black's thick, silky hair. Black moaned, the sound vibrating across Snape's tongue and into his throat, and Snape pulled back to gasp. With his other hand, he began slow circles on the animagus' back, under the jumper he was wearing. Black leaned into Snape, wrapping his arms around the Potions Master's neck and moaning again. Snape bit Black's lip, tugging until it was just this side of pain, and Black growled in approval and began to writhe against Snape, the contact where their groins met making both men groan and pant. 

Black pulled back suddenly, grasping two handfuls of Snape's hair and stilling him, making him focus on Black. In this position, they were eye to eye, only a foot apart, the air around them charged with the heat of their mutual arousal. "You would miss this," Black said simply, firm conviction and an unyielding surety in his voice. Snape said nothing; nothing flickered through his eyes, no heat rose to his face. He may have been made of stone had it not been for the rise and fall of his chest, breath still frantic from passion. Finally, Snape moved his head, just once, so slight a motion that Black would have missed it were his fingers not woven through Snape's long hair. An acknowledgement, barely. Black smiled, not a gloating smile, not a smile of triumph, but a gentle, knowing smile, as of lovers who have made up after a petty disagreement that they know they will have again. 

"Good," was all that Black said. He released Severus' hair and climbed off of him, out of the bed, straightening his clothes as he did so. He reached a hand out toward the Potions Master and said, "Come. If we don't go down, they'll send someone up after us, and it's liable to be Tonks." Snape growled in his throat and took the proffered hand. Somewhat unsteadily, still weak from blood loss, Snape made his way down to the kitchen, shrugging off Black's arm around his shoulder with a terse, "I am fine!" The animagus smiled again.

*****

The kitchen was a warm and rosy light spilling into the hallway at the bottom of the stairs, from which place Snape and Black could hear the gruff storytelling voice of Mundungus and the rich and ringing peals of Rosmerta's laughter. Luna's voice, ethereal and high, rose above the noise in a query, and the barked response sent the room into gales of giggles. Snape entered before Black, slowly, skin death-pale against the wine-red jumper he wore with black Muggle trousers. Laughter died on lips throughout the room, caught like an inappropriate word at a funeral. Snape gave no indication that he knew that he was the cause of the sudden silence. Black merely glanced curiously at the circled faces, trying to ken what they'd been laughing about from their half-amused, half-abashed expressions. Then, Tonks stood up at her seat and began to clap. Slowly, the others took up the sound; chair legs scraped against the floor as people stood to applaud the Potions Master, who was now gripping the back of an empty chair and glowering fit to kill. 

When the applause had died out, Snape turned his gaze stiffly to Albus, who was sitting at the head of the table, farthest from the hearth. "Given the number of times that I have nearly died, I hardly think that this last occasion warrants a standing ovation," he observed, a bitter anger lacing his voice like poisoned honey.

"It's not that you nearly died, you great greasy git," Fletcher growled, humor still in his throat. "It's that you brought us the magic sack o'er there." He gestured in the general direction of Dumbledore, who, Snape saw, was holding up a small, green leather bag on a leather thong. Snape would have liked to walk over and examine the bag, but he was at the last extremity of his strength and the room was starting to waver threateningly. Sensing his stubbornness and distress, both, Black retrieved the leather amulet and handed it to Snape, indicating that the Potions Master should sit down. 

Once seated, Snape examined the bag closely, sniffing it (it smelled of nothing so much as the stagnant water of Her pool), gingerly fingering the exterior to detect what might be within, and finally quirking an eyebrow at Albus, who said, "I have not dared to open it, Severus. She gave it to you. It is yours to open."

Snape worked away the lacing around the bag until there was a narrow opening. He could see nothing within. With care born of years of potions making, he loosened the lacing further and began to reveal the interior of the bag to the light. It was a shinier green, as though it had been worked over by worried hands, again and again. Inside, there was a stone, a polished green flecked with red, like spots of blood in the warm fire- and candlelight of the kitchen. On it was a single mark, carved deep into the polished surface. Brushing his finger distractedly over the cuts, Snape mused until even Albus began to indicate impatience. Finally, Snape spoke, his voice distant with possibilities. "It's an Ogham Few, from the ancient Celtic alphabet. This one is Straif, or our Zed. Traditionally, if my memory serves, it indicates coercion, or control through force."1

"But what is it for, Severus?" Albus asked, very real impatience in his voice. The darkening sky of encroaching night was a forceful reminder of time running slowly through the hourglass of fate.

"I've no idea, Albus. I'd imagine that it is a weapon of some kind, but beyond that, I cannot tell you how it might be used. There are no other markings, see for yourself—" and he thrust it at Dumbledore with a rare show of pique. He did not like being second-guessed. Albus reared back in his chair as though struck and held a hand up as though to ward off a second invisible blow. 

"No, Severus! To you it has been given and with you it must stay. Can you not feel the darkness seeping from it?"

Indeed, Severus could feel little else. He even imagined a phantom tingle in his Dark Mark, which he strove to ignore. Dumbledore was reduced by a small degree in Severus' mind for his refusal to touch the stone, but Snape said nothing.

Black leaned over Snape's open palm to look closely at the stone. "May I?" the animagus asked, holding out his own hand, palm up. His willingness to hold the stone defied Albus' fear. Snape wordlessly transferred the stone to Black's palm, sharing with him a brief but meaningful look. Had Black not known better, he would have sworn that Snape was grateful.

"Does the stone itself mean anything?" Black asked, curiously. He was holding it up to the light now, and the warm glow of the fire seemed to wrap itself around its rich curves, setting it afire in green and red.

Snape gave Black a startled glance, then flushed in embarrassment. "Of course. It's bloodstone—used, among other things, for physical strength, courage, and to aid in victory. How appropriate for a goddess of death."2

Black returned the stone to the pouch and Snape carefully closed it. Then, he pushed it out to the table in front of him. "Of course, I cannot be the one to bear this amulet."

Albus gave him a sharp glance. "What do you mean, Severus? It was given to you—"

"Yes, but it is meant to be used as a weapon, and given its source, a terrible one. I cannot be at the attack on Hogsmeade tomorrow. Voldemort can disable me by calling on the Dark Mark, and though I am capable of resisting, I am more a hindrance than a help while I struggle to throw it off. He will use my weakness against us all, Albus. Besides, I am far more familiar with the Ministry in its current state than I am with Hogsmeade. Surely, you'd prefer that I liberate our fearless leader," Snape's voice was the dryness of scorched desert bones, "than take the risk of betraying our cause at Hogsmeade."

Put that way, Albus had little choice but to agree. And so the division of labor began, only interrupted while Molly and Shacklebolt once more set the beacon spell chiming. 

Tonks, Sirius, and Mundungus Fletcher were delegated to make the dawn raid on Ollivander's. If it were practicable, they were to smuggle wands into the hands of Ollivander himself, who would be entrusted with the duty of arming suitable members of an ad hoc resistance. Meanwhile, Sirius would do his best to permanently disable the two guards posted at the wandmaker's shop, in order to prevent their sounding the alarm. A vicious grin crossed the animagus' face, and for an uncomfortable moment it seemed that he might slaver. He merely chuckled deep in his throat and shook his head, instead.

With surplus wands in hand, the three were to apparate immediately to a rendezvous point outside Hogsmeade, where they would meet Albus, Rosmerta, and Molly. Albus would disable any detection wards the Death Eaters had erected, and then Rosmerta and Mundungus would takes wands to the women's and children's and the men's detention camps, respectively. "Arm only the strongest witches and wizards among them. We cannot waste a single wand," warned Albus. Once the "ready" and "attack" signals had been relayed to the prisoners, the "assault team" (Albus could not stifle a grin at the Auror phrase) would proceed to predetermined positions surrounding the village square. All except Molly, that is, who had been delegated the logical choice to take charge of the Hogwarts students, who were being held in a third detention camp to the southeast of the village, according to Rosmerta and Mundungus. 

At precisely the same time as Albus gave the signal for the attack on Hogsmeade, Snape, Shacklebolt, Luna, and Hagrid were going to attempt to pierce the defensive wards of the Ministry as a diversionary tactic, hoping to elicit a response from the Death Eaters within. Snape had little hope that Bellatrix would be so foolish as to rise to the bait, but he suspected that Narcissa might be getting bored. "She'll be delighted at the idea of fresh bodies to torture," he noted cynically. "And I will be especially attractive, insofar as I have escaped her gentle ministrations before and am, after all, the Traitor." Snape, cloaked in a ward-breaking spell, might succeed in gaining the others entrance to the heavily fortified Atrium. If that didn't work, he had a secondary plan: to set off a detonation spell concealed in a button from his trouser fly. Black gave a muffled laugh, and Snape shot him a dirty look, which only made him laugh harder. "Do not say it, Black," Snape warned, voice deep with threat. Black gave his best "Who me?" look and began to concentrate very hard on the pouch at the center of the table. For minutes afterwards, Snape could detect a twitch at the corner of Black's mouth from his peripheral vision, but he ignored it, as he did so many other things.

"And what of the Gift?" Albus asked, nonplussed.

"You will have to bear it, Albus. It is meant for greater feats than disarming two half-mad witches and a handful of Death Eater flunkees. Dark magic or no, it is powerful; perhaps it is time that we fight fire with fire."

"And how does that make us any better than our enemy, Severus?" The Headmaster's voice was stern with disapproval and a weariness that suggested he had had this argument before.

"It is not the magic, Albus, but the purpose of its use that colors it with evil. This you should know." Severus shrugged, "Besides, I am living proof that both light and dark can cohabit."

Dumbledore shook his hoary head heavily and seemed to search for words. "We have built our world on light. We cannot expect to win it back with Darkness."

A disbelieving and wholly non-ethereal snort startled them all into looking down the long table at Luna, perched in her usual place by the fire. She rolled her eyes at them all and shrugged, mirroring Snape. "With all due respect, Headmaster, who do you think you are fooling here? You are a political appointee, are you not?"

The Headmaster nodded uncertainly.

"As such, are you not often forced to make choices that you would rather avoid?"

"I suppose," he said, still perplexed and at a loss as to her point.

"Like allowing Remus Lupin to resign, when you could have prevented it?" she pressed unmercifully. Sirius shifted in his seat to look at Dumbledore, eyes narrowed.

"Or allowing children to be imperiled when it is necessary for the greater good." Molly Weasley said, a creeping bitterness in her voice.

"Or the whoring of Severus Snape to the Dark Lord," Sirius Black continued, his expressionless voice a message in itself.

"When you sent Sirius and Tonks to the Caves to ask a weapon of Morrigu, did you expect that it would be a gift of the Light?" Luna asked.

Albus looked long and darkly at the little blonde girl where she sat so innocently but spoke so cunningly. Then he conceded. He held both hands up, palms flat in a dual halt sign. "I will carry the amulet. But know this: magic is ruled by the same laws in all cases. What is given out must be gotten back. If I use this Darkness to destroy Voldemort, there will be a terrible price."

Tonks spoke up then, "Snape paid the price already, Albus, almost with his very life!"

"No," Albus said, sorrow heavy on his tongue. "No, child. That was just an offering that comes with the asking. The using has its own price, heavier still, I've no doubt." Then, seeming to shake himself out of an enveloping darkness, Albus summoned a smile, though it did not quite reach his eyes. 

"Come now. Get some rest. It is late and we must all be up in the earliest hours of dawn. We will gather together and review the plans once more at four this coming morning, which gives us all approximately eight hours to rest and prepare individually for the tasks ahead. Sleep well, my friends." And the ancient wizard rose from his chair and shuffled from the room, carrying the burden of his duties like a heavy pack across his shoulders. The others dispersed slowly, though Mundungus and Tonks settled down near the fire to play cards and Luna Lovegood seemed content to curl up in her chair near the fire and doze. Hagrid mumbled something about "seein' to the perimeter" and went out into the cold night. Snape rose unsteadily from his seat and Black surreptitiously righted him where he swayed, keeping one hand on his elbow until they were at their room.

"You look like death, Severus," Black said warmly, no venom in his voice.

"I am still chilled," he admitted, and for Snape to do so meant that he must, indeed, be terribly cold. Black helped him out of the jumper and trousers and into a long, flannel nightshirt he had found in the wardrobe. After seeing Snape carefully tucked into the cozy bed, Black divested himself of all but a pair of heavy flannel boxers, worn to a silky softness by their Muggle owner. He climbed in next to Snape, spooning him, and so tired and poorly did Snape feel that he did not murmur so much as a complaint, but only reveled in the warmth pouring off of the animagus. Soon, both were asleep.

*****

In the wee hours of the morning, when the chill wind moaned through the eaves and the distant Caves gave cry to the Banshees' mournful wail, Black whimpered in the depths of sleep and Snape responded by turning in the animagus' arms and breathing a warm, "Shhhh" on his terror-stricken face. Soothed slowly into consciousness this way, Black opened his eyes and fixed them on the Potions Master, who was staring with equal focus at the animagus. Black eyes met dark ones in an indefinable look, a look that might have meant "Yes" but could well have meant, "Only for now." Whatever Black saw there, he gave a short nod of consent and proceeded to help Snape out of his nightshirt and boxers, until the Potions Master's long, nude length was stretched out before him beneath the warm covers that sheltered them from the cold fingers of winter air in the room. Black paused to pick up his wand momentarily and command the fire to blaze high with light and heat. He wanted to see his lover's skin, to skim down his body unhampered by bedclothes. He shimmied out of his own boxers in a flash and moved back to pull Severus into a tight embrace, face to face, his leg entwined between Severus' thighs, their mouths only a breath apart, heat rushing through them from the fire and their desire for one another. With only a look, with the slightest suggestive movement of his knee between Snape's legs, both of them grew hard and silky and long against one another.

They loved slow and long, a fire to beat back the icy wind howling at the casements. Every death moan from the Goddess was met with an inrush of heated air, a deep laugh of dark desire, an answering cry of passion. Slick with sweat now, nibbling, tasting, flesh on flesh riding through the darkness on the flames of the fire, on the flames of desire within, they moved in one long, slow, sinuous rhythm. Black moved down Snape's writhing body to take him in his mouth, running his tongue first through the slit at the tip of Snape's shaft and then along the bottom of it to its base, then back to the tip to begin again the slow, swallowing, encompassing motion. Each time Black reached the root of Snape's passion, each time he stroked the delicately haired balls or ran a finger back along the crevice of Snape's body to the grasping hole behind, Snape's hips thrust upward, deepening the contact, and Black took it, humming and throating his lover joyously, gloating on the wordless sounds that fell in a constant stream now from Snape's begging lips. Finally, feeling Snape rising on the bliss ballooning within him, Black pulled back and crawled up Snape's body again to claim a searing, possessive kiss. 

As he reached for his wand to prepare Snape, however, Snape reversed them in a single fluid motion, so that Black ended up with his shoulders resting in the cradle of Snape's forearms, his head cupped in the triangle of Snape's joined palms. Snape's smile was wicked, hungry, and he kissed the animagus deeply, so that Black came up gasping for air and moaning at the same time his lover's name, stuttering on the sibilance of Severus, so that it came out in one long hiss. Sliding one hand from beneath his lover, Snape reached for his own wand, muttering the lubrication charm and teasing Black's hole delicately with the tip of his wand. Black shuddered at the cold slickness of the charmed wood and began to thrust against Snape's trapping hips. With every brush of his shaft against Snape's thigh, Black made a sound like a wounded, desperate thing in his throat, and when he could take no more teasing, he threw his head back, baring his throat, and said, "Please."

Snape slid his tongue along Black's offered neck and down into the hollow of his collar bone, stopping to bite there until the pleasure edged on pain, and Black let go a shuddering howl of pent pleasure. Snape slid lower then, taking one nipple then the other into his working mouth until they pebbled hard against his tongue and he nibbled them, biting again to introduce pain and pleasure there. Black keened desperately, managed to gasp out, "Please" again between the sobbing groans, and Snape nudged for entrance against Black's eager body. 

Black stilled utterly, breath held against the coming intrusion, and Snape slid forward slowly, slowly, so slowly that Black was making little, "Unh!" sounds at each gentle thrust, as, inch by long, slow inch Severus speared his lover, pinning him with pleasure to that one spot, the bed, the room, the wind, the Caves, the world fallen away as the heat turned to liquid fire in his veins and Black thrust his head back, throat up, and Snape bit down, gently, there, against the Adam's apple, reminding his lover who was dominant, and Black gave another howl, rising into broken screams of "Yes!' and "Gods!" and "Severus!" and the Potions Master gave in to his own passion, began to rock and then thrust, began to drive himself into Black, who took the force and threw it back with upward thrusts of his own hips, until they were both panting and crying out and begging with "Oh!" and "Yes!" and "My gods!" and one another's names a chorus of desire in the fire-bright room. They built the rocking then to something wild and desperate, until they were both breathless and held there at the shining pinnacle, suspended in time and space for a long moment when they did nothing but stare at one another at the wonder and awe of it and then fell, plummeting together in a mutual shriek, a repudiation of death and fear and hatred, a joyous bursting of life over their skin, until they could not tell where one began and the other ended, only that it would go on and on and on, ineluctable and holy and right.

They came to themselves several moments later, shaken and wondrous and frightened of the power still throbbing about them in the dim room. They had put out the fire with their passion and the chill air lanced against their sweated skin. Still, they did not move. Snape cradled Black against him, reluctant to leave the shelter of his welcoming body, and Black was still beneath his lover, covered, protected, enveloped. 

A Muggle alarm went off in another part of the house, and they shared a last long look, and then Snape slid from Black, and they both groaned at the loss, and then it was time to be up and preparing for the battle to come.

Once bathed and dressed, they stopped for several minutes at the door, not touching, not speaking, only looking, as though through sight alone each could shield the other in protective charms and prevent the coming loss that both expected but neither voiced. They kissed there at the door, a tender, bittersweet joining of lips and meeting of tongues that brought not breath up their bodies but tears to their eyes, tears that neither shed. Then one or the other turned the door handle and they went out into the waiting darkness.

**Author's Note:**

> fn 1: Information on the Ogham Fews was taken from: Moura, Ann. Grimoire for the Green Witch: A Complete Book of Shadows. St. Paul, MN: Llewellyn Worldwide, Ltd. 2004. 219.
> 
> fn 2: Information on the magical qualities of bloodstone was taken from: Cunningham, Scott. Cunningham's Encyclopedia of Crystal, Gem, and Metal Magic. St. Paul, MN: Llewellyn Worldwide, Ltd. 2002. 91-92.


End file.
